The invention relates to a system for the removal of partial-fingered sheath gloves, with increased speed and ease. These sports gloves, as they are known, are widely used by athletes, but also find use in various professions for their comfort and protective characteristics. The invention eliminates a common complaint of wearers, the difficulty of glove removal.
A feature of the type of sports gloves described above is that the fingers of the gloves, or sheaths, extend from the knuckles up to the middle of the wearer's fingers. In addition, such glove sheaths are usually designed to fit snugly around the wearer's fingers to facilitate the gripping of objects.
A major complaint of sports glove wearers is the difficulty of removal. Common methods of removal are an iterative process of pulling and tugging at the individual sheaths or peeling the glove off inside-out. The thumb sheath, because of its angle to the other fingers, is often the most difficult to remove.
Prior art has offered several ways to enhance removal. U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,227 described an exercise glove which connected four of the longest finger sheaths with loops for facilitating removal. However, this prior art did not provide a solution to a major problem encountered by wearers, removability of the glove over the distal thumb joints.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,768,711 proposed a glove with tabs on each finger sheath, including the thumb. However, the method of removal was sequentially grasping and urging the tabs outward, one finger at a time.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,839 proposed a glove with tabs or loops attached to the backs of the finger sheaths for glove removal. However, the force of removal was directed by the tabs or loops to the finger sheaths rather than to the body of the glove. Because the gloves are flexible, directing the force of removal to the finger sheaths frequently results in a gathering of fabric at the finger joints, and with that configuration the fingers of the opposite hand push against the walls of the finger sheaths interfering with removal.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,526 proposed gloves with 3 loops, in the written specification, in at least one embodiment, with the loops going through adjacent finger sheaths. However, the fourth loop that should have encircled the area between the thumb and the index finger sheaths was neither described nor claimed by the inventor.
Based on the limitations of the prior art, a more comprehensive solution was needed which would address removal of the whole body of the glove, including all five of the fingers' sheaths, all at one time, with speed and ease.